Catch-up!

Well, its been on my mind a while that I should update my blog, but somehow, there's always something else that's just that much more urgent. It figures... the fact that I have a presentation to prepare for group meeting tomorrow is enough to somehow elevate the importance of this.

So I guess my last post was right as classes were starting. Seems like quite a while ago, now that we're 2/3 of the way through the semester! I am actually only taking one course (Artificial Intelligence). Which happens to be an undergrad course... and I'm taking it pass/fail. My adviser wanted me to focus my time on research, so I happily am complying. Nothing big on the radar research-wise. Just plugging away at this point.


The one notable event that has happened since the last post happened over fall break. My parents came out from Washington and my brother from California to spend a week out here. We managed to pack quite a bit in! The first Sunday I showed them all around campus (It must have been a 4+ mile walk!). Then Monday morning we headed out on a little tour of the Northeast. The first two nights we stayed at Lake Placid in Adirondack park (which covers a decent percentage of NY state. If you load Google maps and look at the whole US, its the largest green blob! (6.1 million acres).

Lake Ontario (above), Marcy Dam in the Adirondacks (below)

Anyhow, Lake Placid [Here] itself is a midsize town that caters to a lot of tourists (Thankfully this whole trip was off-season!) The winter Olympics have been held there twice, and its right amid the Adirondack "high peaks" reagion. (I might concede them as peaks here... or high hills... but not high peaks.) We pulled in after dark after a somewhat grey and drizzly day. We stopped for a few minutes at a beach on Lake Ontario. It was a little weird seeing a sand beach and (small) waves with no tides of saltwater.

The next day us guys got up early and did a hike I had scoped out on the internet. The destination was Avalanche Lake [Here] which (as near as I found) looked like some of the most "rugged" terrain in the park. It was quite pretty. The beginning of the hike was right within the (relatively narrow) elevation band of peak fall foliage in this region. We stopped at Marcy dam, and old wooden dam, then proceeded to gain about 1500' elevation to put us well above the "winter" line of the tree leaves. After passing through a relatively narrow cleft, we emerged at the lake. I opted to take a slightly longer return route which included a nearby mountain. The trail (if you could call it that...) was far from broad and flat. In fact, at places it was definitely a class three scramble. Wooden ladder rungs were missing (three in a row at one place) which made going pretty slow, and trail and stream were synonymous in many places, which didn't help footing on the often featureless, steeply inclined granite. But I powered on up the 1960' vertical in less than a mile and a half, took my two minutes of view, then booked it down the other side (where I could... the trail was a little better) to keep the others from waiting too long. Turns out my little detour took me with 600 vertical feet of climbing the highest mount in the whole park. Oh well... I guess I was sweating a little.

Traversing the length of Avalanche Lake... (left)

View toward Lake Placid from 4600ft (below)

After getting cleaned up, we all headed towards town to walk around, but the rain started again, so we just storehopped until we found a pizza place and had dinner. The next day we packed up and headed east through Vermont and New Hampshire to Acadia National Park, on the coast of Maine. The trees through here were amazing! we hit right at the peak of fall colors, and whole hillsides were just bright golden. Well, as bright as the could be in the mist and impending rain feeling. We stopped for lunch in Lebanon, NH to have lunch with an old friend of my Dad's from his Stanford days. They had been out of touch for quite a while until my brother (now at Stanford) and one of his friends figured out that their fathers had both been at Stanford at the same time... You can guess the rest I think.

Precipice trail (Acadia NP) (below)
We arrived on Mt Desert Island (which Acadia shares with a couple small towns) well after dark, and found our hotel in Bar Harbor [Here]. The next morning, some of us did the most rugged hike I could find here, (catching the common theme here?) which is actually my favorite hike west of the Mississippi now (excepting maybe the Watkins Glen Gorge walk). Actually, technically it isn't a hiking trail. Its a "non-technical climbing route". Whatever you call it, it was less than 1000 feet of elevation (short hike...), but that 1000 vertical feet was scrambling from ledge to ledge up a moderately exposed granite face. [Here... trail labeled "precipice", although the sat view doesn't do it ANY kind of justice] There were plenty of ladders, handholds, etc. though, and plenty of relatively wide ledges with small trees and stuff. So, while not a place for those with acrophobia, I found it to be perfectly sane and quite enjoyable. It was the closest I've felt to being back on the west coast over here... must have been the combination of granite, ocean views, and multi-hundred foot sheer drops! That morning was some of the nicest weather on the trip, as you can see from the pictures.


View from top of precipice trail (left)


Later that day we did the scenic drive through the park, stopped at the "sand beach" [Here] (uncommon around the rocky coastline of Maine) to walk around a little more, and drove up Cadillac Mtn [Here]. At 1500ft, it is supposedly the highest place within 50 miles of the Atlantic seaboard. Nice view, but too many tourists up there. The whole park we very nice, but it definitely was on the small side as national parks go. We also headed out to the SW corner of the island, to see a rather underwhelming lighthouse and some nice beach/tidepools. We went out for dinner that night, where I had to try lobster (when in Maine...). My verdict is that it's something everyone should try once, but it's a lot of work dismembering the thing for a rather small amount of food. But the little you do get is well worth it.

Sandy beach, Acadia

Portland Head Lighthouse (below)

The next day we headed down the Maine coastline to the outskirts of Boston. As nice as the weather was the previous day, it absolutely POURED all day. Some portions of the coast where we were reported over 3" of rain that day, and I could believe it. Our one substantial stop was at Portland Head lighthouse [Here]. It had a nice moody, misty feel to it, which I guess is OK for a lighthouse, but I would have prefered dry. We toured the accompanying museum to get out of the rain, and got a nice dose of the exceedingly rich maritime history of the area. I'd also like to spend some time in Portland sometime when there's less water falling from the sky.

However, The next day dawned bright, sunny, and not too cold. We caught the red line into Boston proper, and spent the morning doing the "touristy" thing. We started at the Boston Common [Here], and followed the Freedom Trail through downtown, and ended up at the Bunker Hill monument [Here]. All in all, I liked Boston. It's got a nice downtown, at least, with a lot of historical buildings. Early that afternoon, we headed back to Ithaca, which put us back Saturday night on the 6th day after we left.

Downtown Boston had quite the contrast of new and old... (Left)

View from the top of the Bunker Hill monument (Below)

That Sunday we headed over to Watkins Glen, which in my opinion is a must-do for out-of-town visitors. Anyhow, since then its been pretty much life as normal. We've had some really nice fall days here with the trees changing and all. But the cold breath of winter is coming...

Boston Firehouse... (below)